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How to create a DVD using free software

1

Windows user have to download FFMPEG ( from sourceforge for example, or unofficial). Actually binaries are contained in .7z package. Extract executable (ffmpeg.exe) and place in windows folder for example (or any path folder). Linux user can install ffmpeg from their repositories.

2

Then, convert the AVI file in MPEG2 with DVD Profile: 

ffmpeg -i source.avi -target dvd -aspect 16:9 -sameq output.mpg

Usually AVI file have audio track in the same format of DVD (AC3 for example). In this case it is possible to mantain this track without recompress and lose quality:

ffmpeg -i source.avi -target dvd -acodec copy -aspect 16:9 -sameq output.mpg
But can cause a Non monotone timestamp error

3

Now it is necessary to create DVD structure.
Linux user can use directly dvdauthor: 

mkdir DVD
dvdauthor --title -f my_dvd_video.mpg -o DVD
dvdauthor -T -o DVD
Actually Windows latest version (0.6.14) is not available on sourceforge (0.6.9 is the last available) but you can find it somewhere, for example inside Gui for dvdauthor. -T options creates the table of contents file instead of a titleset.

A guide to dvdauthor can be found here. For example to create a DVD with multiple mpg2 movie, you can use XML configuration options:

<dvdauthor>
 <vmgm />
 <titleset>
   <titles>
     <pgc>
       <vob file="video1.mpg" />
       <vob file="video2.mpg" />
       <vob file="video3.mpg" />
       ...
       <vob file="videoN.mpg" />
     </pgc>
   </titles>
 </titleset>
</dvdauthor>

Using XML file you can place for example pause at the end of any video, or use a post command to execute a script at the end of the stream.
In order to create menus you have also use spumux. Since menu buttons live in subtitle channel, spumux create subtitle mpeg.

Additional Information

Can be found here http://atomized.org/2005/03/converting-divxxvid-avi-to-dvd-with-ffmpeg/